I punctuate with close precision,
aware of where
I'm placing my semi-colons and
dashes,
using Oxford commas
like a grammar geek.

Your punctuation always bothers me
but you, with your misplaced apostrophes
and oddly abbreviated words
that you cradle in speech marks,
never care.

You were constantly callous in your conduct,
your handling of punctuation marks.
I assumed you never understood
the significance I attached to your words.

I could feel the excitement
and anxiety and apprehension
build in my belly every time
with your exclamation points!

I could feel my brows furrow together
deep in confusion,
every time you sent me just
one little question mark?

I suppose I never did tell you this
but when last month you ended your sentence
(accidentally, of course) with a dash,
well, I knew then that we’d be for ever.

and when last week you sent me
a comma to end your speech
I knew for certain that
more was to come.

but I see now it was silly
to attach such hope to a hyphen
because yesterday you concluded
with the biggest full stop I've ever seen
and let me know that that was all.

I felt that period’s punch
deep inside my gut
like you were trying to make me
throw up my jam and toast.

I had never before known
one small,
simple
dot
to be so powerful
and hurt so much.

It did though,
and you couldn't even tell-

A dizzy flake of snow falls,
perfectly balanced, upon
one outstretched finger's squat end.
It clings tight for a second-
a sticky, icy second
where I hold with fragile care
the weak sliver, and my breath.
Yet, the next moment, only
water my digit holds up.
It melts away instantly
with the dry warmth I supply,
and I find that, always, all
the delicate, pretty ones
with exquisite tender grace
burn out ever the fastest, first.
So snowdrop kisses, on the
frosty, red nip of my nose
now only make me shiver.
It's all just skin and ice,
and more ice and skin.
Peels of snow and chips of freeze
make chilled my blood and glazed eyes.

I'm only lukewarm, marginally mediocre.
Not quite laid-back enough to be considered cool
Nor adequately exciting for red hot.
Just going by, average, as a rule.
I'm much too old to be reckless and immature,
Yet not as old as wisdom and a good war story.
Not so rich to live out luxurious abandon
but far too rich to be tragically sorry.
I'm unremarkable, uneventful, uninteresting,
Uncool and unattractive, unfit and unaware.
I assume I'm just not- I'm everything 'un' already,
A stale glass of water, gone oddly warm in stagnant air
I am lukewarm, at best.
Perhaps some day I'll be blast frozen
Or I had once been boiled hot.
For now though, there are no cubes of ice
That I can swallow and be more than not.
I am the everyday masses, lost in the throng,
The not-particularly-bright, non-slacker, no-name brands
That believe they're not good enough- or quite the sharpest prong.
We, the herd lost in the middle bench lands-
We're wild and we're sober,
Frightened and unafraid.
We're nothing like you, but we're just the same.
But we, the ones who spend our lives
In the middle bench,
                                                          ­ will be alright.
           We can persevere, *we can.

Often people,
mesmerised by
the depth of others,
comment that they had
no idea they had so many layers,
that such profundity existed. I have myself
been likened to a coconut with a hard shell,
with undiscovered realms within. Hah.
I think perhaps though, that I
am more of an onion.
You can peel all
that you
want
but
-I'm just the same inside.
Maybe I could even
make you cry.